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Homeroasters - Home Roasting Coffee Community » DATALOGGERS - CONTROLLERS - RATE OF RISE METERS » Dataloggers/Controllers/Rate of Rise Meters

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Logger for commercial 5k drum?
DavidG	#1 Posted on 07/12/2012 9:10 AM
1/2 Pounder Posts: 218 Joined: April 20, 2009	Ok friends, I need some wisdom. I am very short-suited on all the software, hardware, jargon and such in the logger, PID, controller, Arduino, TC4 world here at HRO. So you data/control Sherpas out there, you are needed. A dear friend is a owner/roaster of a microroastery/cafe with 2 cafe locations. He roasts on a 5 year old US Roasters custom built 5k drum. Back then, software and logging just weren't what they are now. It has a BT thermocouple with digital readout and alarms. The roaster uses nat gas with digital control valve. I told him that there were several logger programs discussed here that might be useful. His goal is to record profiles and store them in a database of sorts for future use and continuous learning. On his wish list for the future is software that could also "drive" the roast on a pre-determined profile. Mechanically, he is uber-handy and is certified to repair most restaurant beverage equipment (all brands of espresso machines, in particular). However, neither of us have any electrical engineering/software/electronics knowledge. What loggers exist now that we might use? Pros? Cons? Costs? Knowledge resources needed to implement? What programs might be the best bet for control of the roast? Costs? In advance, I am deeply grateful for your thoughts and recommendations. DavidG p.s. I have read the main threads here, except that the technical discussions leave me behind immediately. europiccola \| yama + coryrod \| chemex \| AP \| clever wbp1 \| wepp1 \| bm/hg \| co hybrid (still coming soon...)


allenb	#2 Posted on 07/13/2012 9:08 AM
Administrator Posts: 3859 Joined: February 23, 2010	David, I would suggest considering Roastlogger with TC4: http://forum.home...ad_id=2564 You'll need to get specs on the gas valve to get help here with interfacing with the TC4's output. Are you sure it excepts a digital input? If yes then maybe an analog to digital converter could provide the interface. If you're ok manually controlling air flow which I would suggest, then it shouldn't be real tough to pull off. No matter what hardware/software you decide to tackle, it will require diving into some unknown territory if you're not going to utilize a control expert for guidance especially in the area of UL safety controls. Allen 1/2 lb and 1 lb drum, Siemens Sirocco fluidbed, presspot, chemex, cajun biggin brewer from the backwoods of Louisiana


DavidG	#3 Posted on 07/13/2012 1:38 PM
1/2 Pounder Posts: 218 Joined: April 20, 2009	Excellent, Allen. For starters, we'll pursue the logging. We'll get crawling before running on the automated profiling. This'll be great learning. I expect to post some questions and quandaries along the way. Also, my brother is an accomplished EE designer in the burner control field (oil burners). Probably some overlap... Off we go!! And, thanks. David europiccola \| yama + coryrod \| chemex \| AP \| clever wbp1 \| wepp1 \| bm/hg \| co hybrid (still coming soon...)


allenb	#4 Posted on 07/13/2012 2:48 PM
Administrator Posts: 3859 Joined: February 23, 2010	On his wish list for the future is software that could also "drive" the roast on a pre-determined profile. Sorry for not catching this part of your post. I'm not sure if roastlogger is able to drive the roast at this point in it's development. I would guess that to automate a gas fired drum roaster of this size and be able to precisely maintain a profile temperature would take some fancy PID functions due to drum roaster's inherent lag from time of a SV change to bean temp change. That would be a question for JimG to answer. Allen 1/2 lb and 1 lb drum, Siemens Sirocco fluidbed, presspot, chemex, cajun biggin brewer from the backwoods of Louisiana


JimG	#5 Posted on 07/14/2012 9:00 AM
1 1/2 Pounder Posts: 834 Joined: October 23, 2008	RoastLogger uses a clever non-PID automated profile tool. I won't go into all the details since they are better explained in the newly launched user manual. But fundamentally RoastLogger allows you to pre-program certain events in the roast. There is a set of events that is triggered by temperature, and another set of events that is triggered by time. Each event point is programmed to change to a preset fan output level, a preset heater output level, or both. For a Hottop, a simple set of three events works quite well: 1) increase fan output based on BT (for drying) 2) decrease heater and increase fan based on BT (approaching FC) 3) decrease heater based on time following FC (60 seconds for me) Note that you must be present to signal the start of FC for this to work. Once a user has a few roasts under their belt using these settings, it is pretty easy to tweak to get exactly the profile you want. And you can adjust both fan and heater output on the fly using the slider controls. I was a skeptic when I first saw this, but Tom urged me to try it. I quickly "saw the light" based on several successful automated roasts. Jim
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boar_d_laze	#6 Posted on 08/06/2013 9:12 PM
1/4 Pounder Posts: 181 Joined: May 28, 2013	If a month late isn't too late... Advise your friend to hold off on the automating software for the future until the future. The first thing your friend should do is mount an ET thermocouple, by drilling into the hopper so he can plot ET and BT simultaneously. He might also need to add some sort of hardware capable of handling the two thermocouple signals and converting them to USB, so they can be read by a computer. Also, I'm not going to talk about TC4 because there are so many guys here who know it better than me. But your friend should be aware that it might provide the easiest upgrade path to automation in the future. There are a few non-TC4 ways to do it. The best way might or might not depend on the software. For instance, a lot of guys who use Artisan and RoastLogger (both free) can be set up to run with an external datalogger. The Ampad TMD 56 is an inexpensive and reliable choice, very popular with the H-B guys. I'm currently running Artisan via a TMD 56 and am pretty happy with it. IMO Artisan is a little better than RoastLogger but opinions differ. Considering that both programs are free, there's no reason your friend shouldn't try both. Typica is an open source roaster's program with a bit more functionality and more commercial orientation. It's requires installation of the PostGres SQL database, and is a bit geekier than either. Okay... so I'm not a tech-wizard, but you could call me a near-geek. A near-geek with his own USRC Sample Roaster on order. Which is why I'm kind of up on this stuff right now. My roaster will have a two event SOLO temp controller/data logger -- which requires any third party software to be setup for modbus RTU. So, what the hell, if I have to go to the trouble of setting up the communication protocols I might as well go full-on geek. I don't know what temp controller USRC installed in your friend's roaster. He might be able to retrofit the roaster with a current generation two-event SOLO. He should probably talk to someone at USRC about that. If he does go SOLO, that means converting the RS 485 to USB (easy!) and setting up the software to read the signal as modbus rtu (about as difficult as setting up a home network on a new router). Hope this helps, BDL USRC 1lb Roaster, Chemex+Kone, Espro, Various FPs, Royal Siphon Vacuum, Yama Ice Drip Tower, Bunnzilla, La Cimbali M21 Casa, Ceado E92. CookFoodGood


DavidG	#7 Posted on 08/06/2013 11:54 PM
1/2 Pounder Posts: 218 Joined: April 20, 2009	Excellent! Thank you. sir. Matt (my friend) and I will review together and talk to USRC. All such good advice. Cheers, David europiccola \| yama + coryrod \| chemex \| AP \| clever wbp1 \| wepp1 \| bm/hg \| co hybrid (still coming soon...)


boar_d_laze	#8 Posted on 08/08/2013 7:01 PM
1/4 Pounder Posts: 181 Joined: May 28, 2013	TC4 is not my universe. Good luck, BDL USRC 1lb Roaster, Chemex+Kone, Espro, Various FPs, Royal Siphon Vacuum, Yama Ice Drip Tower, Bunnzilla, La Cimbali M21 Casa, Ceado E92. CookFoodGood

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